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Police: 24-year-old killed, another man injured in shooting in west Tuscaloosa Friday afternoon

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The commander of the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit announced the murder of a 24-year-old man in a press conference outside the County Sheriff's Office Friday night. Sgt. Dale Phillips said Johnny Terrell Sledge was critically injured when a fight between two groups of people in west Tuscaloosa boiled over Friday afternoon. (Stephen Dethrage | al.com)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- A 24-year-old man is dead and another man, 20, was injured in a shooting in Tuscaloosa Friday afternoon, according to the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit.

Sgt. Dale Phillips, the unit’s commander, said an on-going fight between two groups of people boiled over around 2 o’clock Friday afternoon and a physical altercation broke out. Witnesses told homicide investigators that at least two people pulled guns and opened fire on a crowd of people.

24-year-old Johnny Terrell Sledge was critically injured and died about an hour and a half after the shooting, Phillips said. Sledge is the county’s seventeenth homicide victim this year.

Phillips opted not to identify the second victim, whose wounds he said were not life-threatening.

Phillips was careful not to attribute the violence to gang activity. He said the two groups of people were involved in an on-going conflict, but it had more to do with family feuds than criminal activity, he said.

Phillips said there was no evidence that drugs were involved in the shooting, and also said to the best of his knowledge, neither of the two victims were armed when they were shot.

The investigation is on-going, and Phillips said he would not divulge information about the suspects that his unit and the Tuscaloosa Police Department are looking into. Citing the need to maintain operational integrity and keep officers safe, he said more information would be available after arrests were made.

The most he would say is that there would be closure in the case sometime Friday night and more information would follow soon after.

The shooting took place near the intersection of Ash Street and 29th Avenue.